Analgesics, Opioid

Evidence published in Journal of Addiction Medicine showed that combined use of opioid and cannabis was linked to greater symptoms of anxiety, depression and substance use problems compared with opioid use alone in adults with chronic pain.

NYU Langone Health brings together health care providers at the institution to work as a team to create individual protocols for different specialties to combat the opioid epidemic.

A survey of patients with nonsurgical knee osteoarthritis found that just 38% of general practitioners adhere to process indicators, particularly informing patients of the importance of weight loss and referring them to physical therapy, according to data published in Arthritis Care & Research.

Naloxone prescription rates have improved, but there were many “missed opportunities” to potentially avoid opioid-overdose related deaths, new CDC data show.

Nearly 9,000 children and adolescents died as a result of prescription and illicit opioid poisonings between 1999 and 2016 in the United States, according to findings published in JAMA Network Open. Most of these deaths occurred in teenagers, who saw an increase in heroin-related mortality of more than 400% during that time.

In 2017, the HHS declared a nationwide public health emergency regarding the opioid crisis. To prevent future opioid abuse, OrthoCarolina and the OrthoCarolina Research Institute have implemented the Carolinas Opioid Reduction Effort project, which includes the nation’s first comprehensive study designed to assess the efficacy of opioid-free pain management for patients.